Yeah, for the fic I spent a LOT of time with google translate :) It also helps a lot that the Straub-Huillet translation is different (and is unfortunate in generally entirely different places).

Hmm. That sounds worth thinking about. One of my friends in college had a lot to say about linking the divine with a particular point in space and time, with Sinai being one of those correspondence points (this friend being Christian, the life (birth/death) of Jesus was of course another correspondence point). I know that's not exactly what you're talking about, but it's what it made me think of.